The Nexus 6P is a smartphone that was manufactured by Huawei especially for Google, and since it falls under the category of being a Google device, you can be sure that any kind of mobile operating system update would naturally result in an early release for it compared to the other handsets that are in the industry. The Nexus 6P has certainly enjoyed Android 7.0 Nougat since it was released in August this year. Since then, there has been the Android 7.1.1 Nougat update that was rolled out, and the Nexus 6P too, amidst other Google devices, picked it up as well. While things look rosy on the other handsets that run on Android 7.1.1 Nougat, the Nexus 6P apparently does not have the same kind of “luck”.
What’s the beef?
It seems that the latest Android 7.1.1 Nougat update that has been pushed to Pixel and Nexus devices, especially with the Nexus 6P, has some accompanying bugs. Many owners of the Nexus 6P have complained that their handsets started to shut down for no apparent reason at all, when it was working perfectly fine before applying the update.This is also not due to a battery issue, since in many of such cases, there was more than enough power left in the batteries -- we are talking about a battery level that exceeds 60%.
For those who would like to find out more, or if you happen to fall under the same category of beleaguered Nexus 6P owners, then Reddit has a massive thread that might take some time to go through all of the posts. Over on that Reddit thread, affected Nexus 6P aired their grievances after installing the latest Android 7.1.1 Nougat update. Apart from the handset shutting down with more than ample battery life remaining, there were others who also claimed that once the smartphone hit the 10% to 15% battery life level, the smartphone too, will knock itself out. This is starting to sound like a very random issue, which ought to rule out any pattern for the moment.
To add insult to the proverbial injury, the moment the Nexus 6P shuts down, it remains turned off and cannot be turned on again through pressing the Power button. Apparently, you will need to have it plugged into a charger in order for that to happen. Imagine the kind of inconvenience that you would have to go through if this happened to you in the middle of nowhere, or when you are outside with no charger on your at that moment and you are waiting for a very important phone call.
How widespread is the issue?
So far, there has been no official figures released that show just how many Nexus 6P units have been affected by this bug, but for those who are affected, you would do your very best to bring a charger with you wherever you go. I have not come across anyone who would use a power bank with the Nexus 6P in such a situation -- would the power bank be able to turn on a Nexus 6P that shut down randomly? Perhaps someone might want to try it out and share with us in the comments.
Google has not seen it fit to place this bug as a high priority fix in the next update if the low priority on the issue tracker is an indication, so it would be interesting to see how the entire episode is going to unfold in the future.
